First, I'd like to say I am quite impressed with this site.  At first
I thought "who'd pay for that when they can search themselves?", but
then I saw what wonderful and concise work you guys do.  I was
especially impressed with your relentless ability for finding someone
at a company that can actually answer questions ... I've always been
horrible at that.


My question:
I own a device called a Game Doctor SF7 (also called a Professor SF2)
which is a developement tool which allows me to run my own code and
tests on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) ... which in
the East is also referred to as the Super Family Computer (SFC).  The
device would be much, much more useful to me if I knew more about the
hardware.  In particular, what I want to know is
1) Apparently the device has several different memory map "modes" (one
after power up when the BIOS runs and the hardware registers are
accessible, and another after selecting which software to run, and
maybe more).  How many of these memory maps are there?
2) What do each of these memory maps look like (i.e. for each memory
map "mode", what hardware is mapped where in the address space)?
3) How do you tell the hardware to switch from one memory map to another?
4) Where are the memory locations of all the copier's "hardware
registers", and in detail, what are their functions?


While not required, I would consider the following great "extras" and
I will definitely chip in a bigger tip for them:
- the schematics for the device 
- the "code"/"logic" for the programmable logic chip that is the heart
of the device
- commented source code of the BIOS

That last item may sound outrageous to expect from a company, but you
need to realize that the SNES was usually programmed in assembly
language.  The BIOS file is freely available on the web, so it's as if
they are already supplying the source to everyone ... just without the
comments.  Plus, the BIOS chip is socketted and the companies that
produce these kind of devices often encourage the community of their
users to "improve"/"add features" ... because in the end it helps them
business wise as well :)
The commented source may not even exist anymore so I won't hold my
breathe, but it couldn't hurt to ask while you look around.  It would
be great to have!

The other two items you might be able to get from a repair shop.  Not
too many places repair these devices anymore, and they appear to be
only in the East.  So I wasn't sure where to start looking.
---------------------------------------------------

I did a little searching before I realized that I probably should
start trying to track down the companies and try to contact them ...
which I'm horrible at.  But I thought I'd share what I did find in
case it is of some help and speeds up the process.

Apparently there is a decent amount of information on Asian webpages
that I can't read (that  makes sense since the device was more popular
in the east).

The reseller that I obtained the device from was: www.tototek.com

These sites can give you background info on the device if it helps:
http://www.emucamp.com/red/SNES/PSF2.html
http://www.geocities.com/Baja/3222/backup.htm
http://supermodified.net/gamedoctorsf7/

Of note is the first site which has a copy of the manual.  The first
scanned image apparently has some company contact info that may be
useful to you (I'm not sure if it's current though):
BUNG ENTERPRISES LIMITED
Rm 22, 3/F.,Blk B, Shantin Industrial Centre,
5-7 Yuen Shun Circuit, Shatin, Hong Kong.
Tel:(852)2637 2281           Fax:(852)2637 2361

Some more business info I found here:
http://www.widearea.co.uk/playstation/correspondence.html
"From: Paul 
... I work for Carl Industries in the states, marketing head... in the
Far East we are Top Game/Game Partner. And Bung Enterprises. We just
bought Naki International (Nakitek) making us the #2 per capita
manufacturer of video game accessories in the world. We make the #1
selling SNES backup unit in the world, the GDSF7/Professor SF2 ... we
move a volume of roughly 28,000 units a month in the Far East, and
there are more Game Doctors in existence than any other backup unit
(about 1 million units)."


For all I know, some of the info is already buried here:
http://forums.cherryroms.com/  
  in the "Copier and Hardware Forum" section.
There seems to be a lot of info and knowledgable people there.  I
didn't really look at much of it because there seemed to be too much
info to look through, and a lot of it was not related.
-----------------------------

Sorry for all the extraneous info.
Hopefully some of it will be useful in finding answers to my questions.

Thanks in advance,
-SNESprogrammer

---

Clarification of Question by snesprogrammer-ga on 02 Jun 2004 02:44 PDT

Was the extra info I gave confusing instead of helpful?
I'm worried why no one is willing to call around for this question.  I
thought $100 would be quite reasonable.

Greetings, snesprogrammer!

With regard to your Comments in this Question:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=356500

Researchers receive 75% of the fee for Answering a Question. This
means that a Researcher would receive $75. With me (and probably with
many Researchers) that will get you about 8 hours of work.

In addition to being able to read Japanese and/or Chinese (or pay
someone to do it for them), a Researcher would have to pay for
numerous long-distance calls (some possibly International). There's
the cost of the paper and ink to print out the huge manual. There's
the fee that would likely be charged by any repair shop or technician
to hand over detailed schematics -- or to create them, if they don't
already exist (just because somebody got something for free, it
doesn't mean that they won't try to charge you for it -- just look
around the web, starting with Google Answers!). Then there is all the
time that a Researcher would require to search the web for information
buried in various sites such as Forums, and to read all of that found
information, as well as the manual. I don't think that 8 hours of work
would even begin to cover all of that.

To me, a once-over on this Question says that it would require
hundreds of dollars of research and effort. I suspect that many other
Researchers felt the same way.

I hope that this response helps you to understand a little better the
situation from a Researcher's point of view.

Regards,

aceresearcher

I think you misunderstood some things about my question (which may be
part of my problem).  So part of it may be that I need to word things
better?

> There's the cost of the paper and ink to print out
> the huge manual.

When the site said: "I also have the instruction manual scanned and
zipped if you want to print it out, but it's HUGE!" They were
referring to the size of the scanned image file, not of the manual
size.  Besides it also gives a link to an HTML version you can quickly
browse through to gleam any background info you want.

> There's the fee that would likely be charged by any
> repair shop or technician to hand over detailed
> schematics

The schematics were just an "extra" I was willing to pay more for.  It
wasn't required to answer the question.

Besides, if the researcher located such a person willing to sell the
schematics, I wouldn't expect them to pay for it.  It would be for me
to pay.

> In addition to being able to read Japanese and/or 
> Chinese (or pay someone to do it for them), a 
> Researcher would have to pay for numerous long-distance 
> calls (some possibly International).

Hmmm. A language barrier does pose problems.  I was hoping that the
company contacts would be able to speak some english (or, if I was
really lucky, the researchers could speak Chinese).  I guess that
can't be fixed even if I do convince myself this question is worth
more money (I assume the "paying someone to [translate] for them"
isn't a reasonable option).

As for the phone calls, I guess I didn't realise how much that cost. 
I just looked it up and calls to Japan or Hong Kong are about 15-20
cents/minute.  So a couple hours is $20-$30. That is a lot.

Hmmm... $100 was already a bit extravagant for me. What if I posted it
as $2 and was willing to give $100 tip for answering.  Then you guys
get all of it right?  That would cover 8 hours of searching even if it
included a full couple hours of international calls.

Or is that kind of thing officially not allowed?

> I don't think that 8 hours of work
> would even begin to cover all of that.

Even after pointing out that you don't need to read a huge manual or
find schematics as you apparently thought, do you still feel 8 hours
isn't even close to covering that?
I must be horrible at estimating how long it takes.  Well, I'm glad I
asked now.  So how many hours do you estimate?  And then you're saying
roughly ($10/hour + expenses)* 4/3 because of google taking 25%?

Since I'm obviously so bad at estimating the time necessary, how do
you suggest I estimate the time for a question in the future?

Hi, snesprogrammer:

My own thoughts about possible strategies for posting a Question like this.

You have, I'm supposing, a pretty definite goal in mind.  It's hard
sometimes to articulate what one wants, but in fact once that's done,
getting others to help goes more easily.

A quick precis of what you seem to want is detailed hardware
specifications for the Game Doctor SF7, suitable for a game
developer(?).  If you've done as much research already as your
supplementary comments indicate, then probably some multiple of this
amount of time is required to obtain what you want.

So while I think it was excellent that you told us how much you
already have done and learned about your quest, it also serves as
something of a measuring stick for what more needs to be done.

Then the question becomes, who can help you and how?  Obviously the
sort of information you want is best provided by the manufacturer, and
your only reservation about contacting them yourself seems to be a
feeling that you've "always been horrible good at that".  Plus any
language barrier issues.

A tractable sort of project might be to hunt down any developer
resources other than the ones you found (available on the Web) plus
some manufacturer contacts that you'd be responsible for pursuing
yourself.  While this would obviously not be everything you want to
know about the Game Doctor SF7, it might be a more efficient use of
time, because ultimately you will need to assess any documentation
that is located for yourself.

I've done similar things on other Questions, locating developer
resources for particular hardware/software products, and unfortunately
in this case, I just didn't see your post before it expired.  I'm not
convinced I would have had enough time to look into it properly, but
I'd probably try to through out some useful leads for free unless
another Researcher locked it to Answer.

best wishes,
mathtalk-ga

> If you've done as much research already as your
> supplementary comments indicate, then probably
> some multiple of this amount of time is required
> to obtain what you want.

I looked through search results for an hour at most and made posts on
that forum asking for info.  This was enough to make me realize I
probably needed to contact the manufacturer ... and I'm horrid at
that, so I came here.

Therefore, the amount of search time I did isn't really a good
measure.  And my "hands on" research time (which I have done a lot of)
doesn't really count in this, since I don't expect any researcher to
do any reverse engineering themselves.

> your only reservation about contacting them
> yourself seems to be a feeling that you've
> 'always been horrible at that'.

Yes, it's true I probably should really learn to do this.  But I
obviously don't know what to say to get ahold of the correct people. 
The folks that work the main lines to companies can only answer the
"standard questions", and I usually want technical answers.  I usually
just get frustrated and get no where.  Yet I have friends who seem to
be able to accomplish anything by "calling around".

I remember spending two hours calling Epson trying to get control
codes for one of their printers.  I got so frustrated that a friend
volunteered to help ... it took him 10 minutes and somehow was able to
get them to forward him to some programmer guy that helped us.  When I
did it they just kept saying, sorry I don't know how to help you.  I'd
ask them to forward me to someone that can help and they'd just pass
me on sideways (someone in the same department) instead of passing me
to anywhere new.  The more frustrated I got, the faster they'd pass me
sideways.

This is just one example, but I've seen people find stuff in half an
hour that would take me hours (if ever) to accomplish.  (The best I've
ever done is in about an hour of calling around I got the number of a
repair guy that could look up part values for another device I was
working on.)

Some people just have a knack at finding their way around.
Definitely not me ... but I bet the researchers are blessed with the
conversive skills for such things as that. (I've asked my friends that
can do it what the trick is, and they just say "What do you mean? You
just call and do it".  Oh well :)

> A tractable sort of project might be to hunt 
> down any developer resources other than the 
> ones you found (available on the Web) plus
> some manufacturer contacts that you'd be 
> responsible for pursuing yourself. 

Wouldn't that be a vague question?
Or do you mean basically, instead of asking "Answer this", ask "Find
someone that can answer this"?

Thanks for your suggestions.

Hi there!

You write:

>Hmmm... $100 was already a bit extravagant for me. What if I posted it
>as $2 and was willing to give $100 tip for answering. 

That would all but guarantee that no one would even *consider* trying
to help you.  If you were to "forget" to leave the promised
tip...well, your Researcher would have done a ton of work and would
have actually lost money on the endeavor.

Not to say that this is your intent, mind.  But it does happen, and
we've all been burned in this fashion at least once and are extremely
wary of such questions now.  I personally don't take on such questions
unless it's for a customer I've done extensive work for in the past.

--Missy

That makes sense.  I guess there is no easy way around that, and the
only ways that come to mind involve trading some kind of personal info
which apparently is not allowed.